To these gardens come in August and September hundreds of men, women, and children from London slums; some by train, many more by road. Whole families of them, with their clothing, their pots and pans and sooty kettles, slung over their shoulders, come tramping down the weary miles, and fill the air with ribaldry, strange oaths, and horrible blasphemy. The villagers keep them at arm's length, if not, indeed, at a greater distance than that, and keep their children at home; going round their gardens and orchards at night, to see that gates are locked; and, bolting doors and latching windows securely, go to bed and dream dreams in which evil-looking hoppers are stealing their fruit and making away with the occupants of their hen-roosts. Sometimes they wake up and find the crashing of branches, the screaming and clucking of cocks and hens, which have formed the subjects of their dreams, to have foundation in fact, and hurriedly dashing out of bed, arrive, barefooted and armed only with a poker, in their gardens just in time to see mysterious figures vanish over the wall and to hear the protests of their stolen fowls grow small by degrees and beautifully less in the distance. Next day the bereaved villager is heard to execute fruitless variations of "Tell me, shepherds, have you seen my Flora pass this way?" and some enterprising emigrants from Whitechapel feast royally on poultry. [Sidenote: OSPRINGE] Just where the hilltop rises and looks down in the direction of Ospringe, the wisdom of the Faversham authorities has planted a Hospital for infectious diseases. It fronts the road, and has a very large door with "Isolation Hospital" painted on it in very small letters. Tramps and beggars passing by see a large house where possibly something may be begged or stolen. They go up to the door, and, after reading the legend painted there, may be seen to proceed hurriedly on their way. Without standing on the order of their going, they go at once. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico_: they don't know what "isolation" means, but they hurry off, lest they should catch isolation and die of it. And so they come, stricken with a mortal fear, into Ospringe, down a dusty hill. A Maison Dieu that stood here in olden times would perhaps have received them then, but to-day the few fragments of it that remain are part of the "Red Lion" inn, and tramps find no encouragement there.